


Malastare Racer

by ikeracity



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Star Wars Setting, Charles Is a Big Dorkface, Emma Is Not Impressed, Erik is a Sweetheart, Gen, Pre-Slash, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-12
Updated: 2016-05-12
Packaged: 2018-06-07 23:26:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6829696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ikeracity/pseuds/ikeracity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ignoring strict instructions from Master Emma to stay hidden, Charles and Erik decide to enter themselves into the Gorian Podracing Classic. Because they're idiots like that. </p><p>Star Wars AU!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Malastare Racer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pangea](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pangea/gifts).



> HAPPIEST OF BIRTHDAYS TO YOU, FRY!!!!!!! I'm so glad we're friends, and I hope this lil fic brings some joy to your workday. I hope you don't mind that I played around in our Star Wars AU a bit on my own. I love you lots, and I hope you have a fabulous, fabulous day <3333 
> 
> This takes place somewhere in the Star Wars AU pan and I have been tossing around for a while now. The larger verse takes place after Episode III, before Episode IV. Emma is one of the surviving Jedi after the fall of the Jedi Order, and now she's on the run with Force-sensitive Charles and Erik. Cue SHENANIGANS.

The podracer is ugly. There’s no getting around that. It’s short and squat and ugly as all hell, and Erik gives it an exceedingly dirty look before going to inspect it more closely. As he mulls it over, Charles turns to Ned Didinaros and says, “We’ll split the winnings seventy-thirty.”  

“Forty-sixty,” the Toong pilot counters.

“Look, you’re not the one who’s going to be flying that deathtrap,” Charles points out.

Didinaros’ eyes narrow. “I built that!”

“Yeah,” Erik calls, yanking out an ignition wire, “and it’s shit. Do you have a wrench around here somewhere?”

Grumbling, Didinaros fetches a toolkit from the back of the garage and hands it over. As Erik gets to work, the Toong says, “Fifty-fifty.”

“Sixty-forty,” Charles says. “Final offer.”

After a long moment, Didinaros nods. Beaming, Charles shakes his slim hand and says, “You won’t regret it.”

“I’ve got nothing to lose anyway,” Didinaros mutters, tottering up the stairs back into the main house.

It’s true, for him: just last week, he’d broken his arm in a practice race on the Beigu Circuit, which disqualifies him from the eagerly anticipated Gorian Classic coming up early tomorrow morning. But his misfortune is their good luck—Erik and Charles have managed to convince him to allow them to race in his stead, with the condition that they’ll split the earnings. Given that the odds against Didinaros are 10000/1, those earnings would be sweet indeed.

Charles heads over to where Erik’s tinkering with the engine and leans against the rusty cockpit. “How does it look?”

“I’m surprised this thing can even get airborne,” Erik grumbles. “No wonder the odds against him are so shitty.”

“That just means we have more to win.”

“If I can even get this to fly.” Erik raps on one of the front engines with the wrench in his hand. “Try to turn it on.”

Climbing into the cockpit, Charles takes a moment to orient himself and then flips the two red ignition switches beside the central screen. The podracer stutters, huffs, and then expels a huge, choking cloud of smoke. Coughing violently, Charles covers his nose and mouth with his sleeve and waves frantically at the smoke to clear it. Erik grabs a rag from nearby and fans him with it until the black smoke has dissipated, swirling upward into the ceiling vent.

Eyes watering, Charles says, “I take it that wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“I bet the exhaust is misaligned,” Erik says, ducking underneath the racer. A moment later, he bangs the wrench against the underside in annoyance. “I knew it.”

“Can we really do this?” Charles says doubtfully, watching as Erik yanks out one of the protective panels covering the racer’s vulnerable underbelly.

“Of course we can. We’re the best pilots this side of the galaxy.” Erik pauses, then adds modestly, “Besides Master Emma, of course.” 

“I don’t doubt your skill,” Charles says, because Erik really _is_ an exceptional pilot. Even Emma says so, and she’s not one to hand out compliments lightly. “But if we don’t have a functioning podracer, it doesn’t matter how good you are.”

“The race isn’t until dawn,” Erik replies. “That’s plenty of time to get this old bucket up and running.”

If there’s one thing Erik’s good at besides pissing Master Emma off, it’s mechanical engineering. So it isn’t much of a surprise when, three hours later, Erik emerges grease-stained and triumphant as both engines roar to life, pulling the cockpit up off the ground.

Charles touches its humming side, awed. “Master Emma’s going to kill us.”

“Probably,” Erik agrees.

‘“Podracing is the best way to pick out the galaxy’s greatest idiots,”’ Charles quotes.

“She doesn’t really believe that.”

“Of course she does. And when she finds out we’ve raced, she’s going to murder us.” Charles gulps. “Slowly.”

“She’ll never find out,” Erik says dismissively.

“What if we actually win?”

Erik frowns. “She might find out then. But it won’t matter. We’ll have gotten what we wanted.” He gives Charles a long look. “Don’t forget why we’re doing this.”

Charles heaves a sigh. “I won’t.”

As Erik finishes up tweaking the engines to his satisfaction, Charles perches on an overturned crate and goes over the plan once again in his head. Emma won’t be back on Malastare until tomorrow evening, which gives them plenty of time to prep the podracer, win the race, collect their prize money, and sneak back to the hostel before she returns. She’d left them with instructions not to wander beyond the cramped three blocks of the tourist sector, but what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

At least, that’s what Erik had said. Now Charles is starting to regret letting Erik talk him into this. What if they crash? What if one of them gets hurt in the race? More importantly, what if their faces are caught on the interplanetary broadcast and someone from the Empire recognizes them?

When he voices the last concern aloud, Erik just waves a rag at him. “Come on, Charles, use your imagination. We’ll just wear masks.”

“They’re still going to want to know who we are if we win,” Charles argues. “We’ll have to take off our masks to collect the prize money.”

“Not if you use the Force,” Erik says.

Of course. That’s Erik’s standard answer. Charles rolls his eyes skyward. “That’s not how the Force _works_.”

“Master Emma can make it so people can’t see us,” Erik points out, undeterred. “She’s put disguises on us before. Just do that.”

Charles flicks him an annoyed look. “Master Emma’s a _Jedi Knight_. I’m just a padawan. There’s no way I can do what she can.”

“You can,” Erik insists. “You’re better than I am at mind stuff anyway. Do you have a better idea?”

“Well—no.”

“Then it’s settled.”

Charles huffs in frustration. It can be so annoying sometimes when Erik barrels full-speed ahead without a real plan in place. This is why Master Emma doesn’t trust them alone. He resists the urge to rub at his temples and says, “We could ask Didinaros to collect for us.” At least then they might get away with not showing their faces.

“Fine. Whatever works.” Erik flips the ignition switches again, and the engines burst to life with a crack and a roar. Grinning, he shouts, “She’s ready!”  

Once the racer’s back on the ground, Charles waves him over to the holomap sitting on a haphazard stack of metal scraps. It’s Didinaros’, the one he’d been using to study up for the race, but he’d given it over to them when they’d taken over as his pilots. The long, tortuous path of the Gorian Circuit rises and dips across the forested Malastare landscape, winding through trees, over wetlands, and among the infamously perilous twisted canopies. It’s a 180 kilometer track, about average for a Classic, and it’s been deemed by professionals as one of the more difficult circuits in podracing.

Not impossible though. Just two years ago, an amateur Xamster defeated all the favorites to snatch the 200,000-credit prize. Charles hopes they can pull off another upset in the morning.

“Eh,” Erik says, surveying the 3D map. “It’s not terrible.”

“You might have some trouble here,” Charles says, pointing to a narrowing of the track where the forest trees close in. “That looks wide enough for just a couple of podracers, maybe three. If you get stuck—”

“I won’t get stuck.”

“But _if_ you do—”

Erik flicks his ear hard enough to make Charles yelp. “I won’t. Don’t worry so much.”

“I don’t think you’re worrying _enough_ ,” Charles snaps, rubbing at his sore ear. “We’re taking a huge risk here. If something goes wrong and Master Emma figures out that we were here, she’s going to skin us alive. And even if _nothing_ goes wrong and she still figures it out, we’re still dead! And that’s if you don’t kill yourself smashing headfirst into a tree at 700 kilometers an hour! I’m not looking forward to explaining to Master Emma exactly how you got yourself blown into a million pieces.”

“Charles.” Erik places both hands on his shoulders and ducks his head to meet his eyes. Erik’s had a huge growth spurt over the last summer, so he now stands a full head taller than Charles, tall enough that Charles has to crane his head back to look him in the face. His eyes are solemn as he grips Charles’ shoulders and says, “Just trust me, all right? Piloting isn’t all here.” He takes one hand off to point at his head, then pats his stomach. “It’s here, too, in the gut. You have to feel it.”

Charles gives him a disgruntled look. Even at fifteen, Erik’s one of the most incredible pilots Charles knows. He has gift for knowing exactly how a craft works, exactly where its balance is and how to pull maximum effort from its engines. But his skill isn’t from studying every single vehicle in the galaxy in excruciating detail—it’s innate, Force-driven probably, as Master Emma has speculated before. Given that, Charles admits, grudgingly, that Erik might have a point.

“Still,” he says anyway, “it won’t hurt to study the track ahead of time.”

“I already did.”

Charles’ brows rise. “When?”

Pulling away, Erik gives him an unimpressed look. “Come on, Charles. You don’t think I hatched this whole scheme and convinced you to go along with it without doing a little research, do you? Give me a little credit.”

Charles blinks. “Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Well…” Charles sits back down on the crate. “Okay then.”

Erik tinkers with the podracer for another few minutes before dragging a crate over and flopping down beside him. “So. 200,000 credits.”

“120,000,” Charles corrects. “Didinaros is eating forty percent.”

Erik makes a face. “I still think he should’ve settled with thirty. He’s not even racing himself.”

“Yeah, but without him, we wouldn’t have a podracer at all. So it’s lucky us, really.”

“Mm,” Erik grunts, picking up a small rusted five-corner bolt from the floor. Setting it in his palm, he stares hard at it, a furrow of concentration appearing between his brows. After a moment, it wobbles up out of his palm, then begins to lazily orbit his hand. “120,000 credits,” he says, his eyes fixed on the bolt. “I wonder what Master Emma will do with all of it.”

“She’s going to save it for emergencies,” Charles says reasonably. “It’ll probably go a long way after what happened on Atollan.”

Erik winces. “That wasn’t our fault.”

“It was _kind_ of our fault.” Master Emma had had to shell out almost all of their emergency funds to bail them out, and even then they’d barely escaped unscathed. Even though that had happened almost six months ago, Charles still feels guilty about it, and he knows Erik does, too. If he didn’t, he probably wouldn’t have hatched this get-rich-quick scheme in the first place.   

“Fine,” Erik huffs. “But we’re making up for it with this.”

“Hopefully. If you win.”

“I’ll win.”

Charles shoves him lightly in the shoulder. “Don’t be too cocky. ‘Arrogance reaps misfortune.”’

Erik rolls his eyes. “You need to stop reading that shit.”

Charles wrinkles his nose. “That ‘shit’ is the collection of some of the greatest Jedi adages of all time. Those beliefs are the foundation of the Jedi Code.”  

“Yeah,” Erik says, “and look what that got them.”

They both go silent for a moment, immediately sobered by the thought. Both of them were too young to really process what the destruction of the Jedi Order meant, but they know it changed the courses of their lives, and of Master Emma’s. Charles has wondered often what it’s like for Master Emma, to have completely lost the temple that was her home and the people that were the closest things she had to a family. He can’t imagine it himself, but sometimes he catches her sitting by the ship windows, her gaze a million miles away on the stars. She hardly ever talks about the Order and Charles has never seen her sad, but he still wonders if she misses it. How could she not?

“Come on,” Erik says, when the silence between them has grown too morose to bear, “we should get some sleep. Big day tomorrow.”

“Yeah.” Charles lets Erik take his hand and lever him to his feet. “We’ve got a race to win.”

 

*

 

The stadium the next morning is completely packed. As he looks out into the crowd, Erik is briefly dizzied by the chaos and noise. There are Dugs strutting around in the stands, Toydarians flitting from seat to seat, Gran attendees waving banners and ribbons for their favorites. There are humans, too, so Erik and Charles don’t seem out of place. They’ve deliberately dressed in Malastarean common fashion to blend in, and Erik, with his pilot gear, will be mostly unrecognizable anyway. It’s Charles, who’ll be sitting in the racers’ dugout with Didinaros, who has to worry about possibly being spotted.

As if reading his mind, Charles says, “Don’t think about me or anything else. If you want to win this race, you’ll have to be a hundred percent focused. ‘True attention creates true results.’”

“Don’t quote at me,” Erik grumbles, restlessly checking over the buckles on his pilot suit again. The material is thick and fire retardant, designed to help him survive a crash. He’ll have a helmet, too, and goggles to protect his eyes. Even though crashes and explosions are half of what draw fans into the stadium, the circuit directors don’t actually want racers to _die_. That would cut too far into revenue, and the circuit is, first and foremost, a business.

After a moment, Charles detaches himself from the wall and comes over to adjust the buckles on the back of Erik’s suit, the ones he can’t reach well. As he tightens the strap around Erik’s waist, he says quietly, “Be careful, Erik. I mean it. Podracing is dangerous.”

“I know. Don’t worry—I’ll make sure you don’t have to tell Emma all about how I died in a fiery explosion.”

“It’s not that I’m afraid of,” Charles mutters. After a moment, he wraps his arms around Erik’s waist and presses his face into his back. His voice is muffled as he says, “I mean, be careful for _me_.”

Sobered by his tone, Erik tentatively wraps his fingers around Charles’ wrist, which is pressed against his stomach. “I will. I promise.”

They stay like that for a long, quiet moment, Charles warm and familiar against his back. Then, without warning, the door bursts open, and Ned Didinaros bustles in, antennas flicking in agitation. Charles jumps back and before Erik has time to miss his presence, Didinaros snaps his stubby green fingers and says, “Come, they want you to bring the pod down to the track now. The race will start in fifteen minutes, and if you’re not in the line-up, you’re not racing.”

Erik nods and grabs his helmet. After a brief hesitation, he takes Charles’ hand and squeezes it. “See you later.”

Charles grins and squeezes him back. “Good luck.”

When Erik was a kid, he used to watch podracing all the time, staring wide-eyed at racing legends like the infamous Sebulba and Mawhonic. His mother used to have to drag him away from the holos at night and tuck him into bed with promises to let him watch the replays later. Once he’d dreamed about growing up to be a celebrated podracer, his name broadcast in every household across the galaxy, his face plastered across holoscreens the world around. But that had been before the raiders. That had been before Master Emma had come and taken him away.

He tugs his helmet on and makes sure the strap is tight under his chin. When he pulls his goggles down, they tint the world yellow. Climbing into his racer, he flips the ignition switches. The pilot’s chair vibrates beneath him as the engines roar to life, and carefully, he maneuvers over to starting pylons.

There are upwards of twenty other racers competing in the Classic, which significantly crowds up the starting line. They’re all jostling for a prime position, engines spluttering, pilots chittering and snarling at each other in languages Erik doesn’t recognize. He doesn’t bother with any posturing, just shifts his racer into a relatively empty section of the starting line. In lengthy races like these, it doesn’t matter if you’re the first off the line when the clock starts. It only matters how agile you are with your racer, and how well you endure.

He’s quiet and unassuming, which is probably why the racers around him don’t bother heckling him. They’re too busy jabbering at each other to even spare him a glance. The clock projected above the pylons counts down to the start, and as the numbers grow nearer and nearer to zero, the crowd’s noise swells in anticipation. Erik wraps his hands around both steering levers and forces himself to breathe, forces away the nervousness. Master Emma’s words echo in his skull, drilled into him by years of training: _Let go of your anxieties. Let go of your fears. In the Force, there is no fear, no sorrow, no hate, no desire. Feel it. Let it guide you._

He closes his eyes and reaches out for that intangible power that always simmers near his skin, like a dormant well of energy waiting to be tapped. He doesn’t summon it as much as it summons him, pulling him into its currents, subsuming him into its tides. He takes a deep breath and lets himself feel it coursing through him, strengthening him.

The projected clock begins a countdown, red lights flashing to green. _Three…two…one…_

Erik slams the steering levers forward and up, immediately rising above the clunky racer in front of him. Its pilot lets out a shrill scream as Erik scrapes the air directly above him and roars past, jumping several other racers in quick succession. In a packed race like this, the higher you get—within regulation, of course—the quicker you advance. Erik had spent last night augmenting the racer’s altitude boosters for this very purpose, and when he skims over the heads of other hapless racers stuck in the bottleneck of the starting line, he’s glad he did.

He’s not the only one who went up though—there are racers all around him who’ve picked the same strategy, racers who begin jockeying with him for airspace. Most of them are tentative, testing out the waters, but there’s one Dug directly to his left who rears back and then slams his cockpit into Erik’s with enough force to jar Erik’s bones. Gritting his teeth, he slams the Dug right back in the side of his ugly green-plated racer, wincing as metal screeches against metal.

They ride alongside each other for maybe half a kilometer before the Dug falls back slightly. Erik glances back in time to see the green racer swipe sideways across his tail, and by then it’s too late to avoid the bump—the impact wrenches his pod around, spinning the front engines sideways and jackknifing him across the track.

Cursing, he hangs onto the steering levers with all his strength, fighting to keep the pod level. The Dug flashes past, followed by a stream of other pilots. One blue pod narrowly avoids scraping the top of Erik’s cockpit, whistling by inches above his seat. A little lower and it would have taken his head off.

With difficulty, Erik wrestles the front engines back into place and slams the levers forward, hitting maximum acceleration. The pod judders, then leaps forward. He’s lost time, but it’s a three-lap course. There will be more than enough opportunity to catch up.

For all the odds against him, Didinaros had invested in a good racer. It’s fucking ugly and gangly, unpleasantly vomit-colored and cobbled together from old and new parts, but it runs like a solid, experienced KT9 Wasp. Erik had modified it somewhat last night, but honestly he’d had a good frame to work off of. It handles well, is small enough to pick up speed rapidly, and is sturdy enough to sustain hits. Erik’s seen worse racers.

Even as that thought crosses his mind, the rattling red racer in front of him blows out an engine, spinning wildly off the track. Erik jerks the steering levers up to avoid the explosion and emerges through a cloud of smoke, swallowing the taste of ashes on his tongue. Another gray racer to his left flips out of contention, forced off-course by the same Dug who had sent Erik into a near tailspin earlier. Eyes narrowed, Erik races after him.

It isn’t long before they reach the narrowest part of the forest course. Erik gives up on keeping an eye on the Dug in favor of focusing all his attention on passing safely through the complex, wending root system that stretches out mid-air for kilometers. It’s no wonder the Gorian Circuit ranks as one of the more difficult regulated tracks in the Classic Courses; in its tightest, trickiest spaces, even a second of distraction could mean disaster. The danger of it is exhilarating—Erik is exquisitely aware of every beat of his heart, of the sweat trickling down his forehead under the cushion of his helmet, of his lungs expanding and contracting with every breath.

The incredible thing is, he can _feel_ the track. He can feel where it rises and dips, where tree roots tangle in knots and where they open up with enough space to allow a racer through. It’s not skill, it’s not trained reaction time—it’s pure, unalloyed instinct guiding his hands on the steering levers, telling him to pull up or down, to dodge left or right. He can just hear Charles in his head, going into raptures about how the Force works, how good and magnificent it is. Erik doesn’t know if he’d call it good, but he _knows_ it’s magnificent.

They shoot out from the forest in twos and threes, engines roaring. Erik counts seven racers in front of him, the frontrunner barely a kilometer ahead. He glances at the fuel meter and figures he has enough to burn on acceleration. The next part of the track is largely flat and unobstructed, so if there were ever a perfect time to make a jump ahead, this is it. Erik hits the advanced accelerator and shoves the steering levers all the way forward. Both engines crack and roar, and the entire cockpit leaps as it’s yanked forward. He flashes past the gray pod directly in front of him, skirts around a bulky brown racer with star-pointed engines. The green pod in front of that one sees him coming and pulls to the side, trying to cut off his path. Erik eases back slightly until he’s behind the racer, then puts on a burst of speed that takes him around its other side and beyond it.

Now there are only four left in front of him, with two laps left. More than manageable.

Erik’s content to sit in fifth place for much of the second lap, hoping that either the course or the other racers will knock away the competition for him. The slim orange racer that’s been doing well to stay inconspicuous up until now gets into a tangle with the Dug who’d tried to take Erik out at the beginning of the race. Their engine lines twist up, locking them together, and when the Dug jerks to the side, the smaller orange racer is helplessly pulled along. Erik drops back a few paces, knowing this is going to end badly for at least one racer. And it does—the Dug rolls his pod, which twists the orange racer under him, and there’s nothing the pilot can do except scream as the Dug drags him against the mossy forest ground, smashing the orange pod to smithereens.

Erik’s pulse is slamming in his wrist. It takes the Dug a moment to right himself, and in that brief few seconds, Erik slips past him, accelerators switched on full. The Dug lets out a furious chitter behind him, and then his voice is lost to the thunderous wind whipping past the cockpit, drowning out all sound except the engines and Erik’s heartbeat.

With the start of the third and final lap, Erik’s sitting comfortably in fourth place. It’s honestly a better position than he’d expected to grab, and he’s determined to hang onto it. As they zip down a green valley, he pushes the speed again, riding on the tail of the white racer in front of him. The human pilot turns around to glare at him, her braid flapping under her helmet. He nudges forward until his front engines are nearly scraping her cockpit, hoping to make her nervous enough to force a mistake. He rides her back for one kilometer, then another, and then he senses a sudden surge of _intent_ and yanks his racer to the left just as she brakes hard. Instead of smashing into his front engines and probably taking them out, she flies past him, shooting back into empty space. Erik slams his racer forward, taking full advantage of the gap and leaving the white racer far behind.

Two left: a purple-striped racer manned by a Rodian and a jet black pod piloted by a Cerean. There’s about half the circuit left, maybe 90 kilometers. The ground rushes past beneath him in green blurs, the trees blending into an indistinct brown wall. He ducks beneath a gnarled branch, then just barely manages to pull up over another one lying low against the path. He’s nearly on the tail of the Rodian now, who’s in turn on the tail of the Cerean; barely a pod’s length separates each of them. It’s too risky to try to edge past while the track is so convoluted, so he doesn’t push the distance between them.

That’s what probably saves his life—a mere half kilometer before they clear the root system, the Cerean’s right front engine snags on a low-hanging branch with enough force to snap it from its electromagnetic coupling. Off-balance, the racer dips, smashing headfirst into the forest ground. The Rodian is far too close to swerve completely out of the way and ends up slamming into the trunk of a massive tree, cockpit sent spinning away as it’s severed from its engines. 

Unable to avoid it, Erik tears through the resulting explosion, head ducked to keep the worst of the flames at bay. Blinded by the smoke and distracted by the fire, he misses the next dip of the track and flies over it far too quickly. His right front engine clips the ground as the pod falls ungracefully, and dirt and rocks fly up, clattering as they’re sucked into the engine. A red warning light blinks to life on the control panel, and Erik struggles to hold the steering levers firm as the right engine splutters, weakens. He manages to guide the racer over the next rise and under a knotted root bridge, and then he’s flying out over the flat wetlands, nothing in front of him but the plain.

His heart hammers painfully in his chest. Holy shit, that had been _close_. No doubt Charles is watching on the viewscreens in the stadium right now and working himself into a fit. Imagining the scolding he’s going to get later calms Erik down a bit, and he dials back the speed to accommodate for his compromised engine. He’s in the lead now anyway, and there’s no one behind him to challenge him for it. It’ll be a straight cruise from here to the finish line.

The sudden roar of engines behind him makes him twist around in alarm. In an instant, he sees his mistake: he’d discounted the Dug from earlier who’d fallen back, and now, with Erik’s bum engine and only 30 or so kilometers left, the green racer has the distinct advantage. “Fuck,” he hisses, hitting the accelerator, but it’s not enough—the right engine squeals and pops, smoke pouring from its vents. The control panel reads only 40% output on the right engine, which isn’t nearly enough to power him to the finish. The Dug is only picking up speed, his green racer drawing within ten lengths of Erik’s, then five—

Erik can only think of one thing to do. It’s one of the stupidest plans he’s ever thought of, but he tries not to focus on that as he watches the Dug approach. Three lengths…two…and then, as the Dug finally pulls level, Erik pulls his pod up, over, and then down, wrapping the cable of his right engine around the Dug’s left one. The Dug lets out an outraged shout and tries to roll, but Erik’s pod isn’t as light as the orange racer and can’t be dragged. Erik’s left engine screeches as it fights against the Dug’s momentum and just barely—barely—manages to keep them level. Foiled, the Dug tries to yank away, but their engine cables are tangled tightly together—they’re stuck.

Erik can’t help but grin in fierce triumph. If the Dug’s crossing the finish line, then he’ll be dragging Erik right alongside him.

Twenty kilometers, then ten—the track rushes past as the Dug tries his hardest to shake Erik off. But Erik clings to him as stubbornly as a sand fly to a bantha. The roaring of the onlookers grows louder and louder as the stadium comes into view, a steadily growing speck on the horizon. Erik can see the finish line pulsing green in greeting, and the crowd leaping and crowing in excitement. The Dug looks at him then and lifts his lip in a sneer of triumph, and, stomach dropping, Erik realizes why—the Dug’s engines are maybe three feet longer, ensuring that even with Erik as passenger, he’ll cross the finish line first. _Shit_.

There’s no prize for second place, Erik thinks wildly. _There’s no prize for second place_. Heart galloping in his chest, he watches the green finish line loom closer—closer—

When the Dug throws up his arms in triumph, Erik slams all power into the left engine. The resulting kick torques both pods, skidding them to their sides, Erik in front, the Dug behind. Screaming in shock and rage, the Dug grabs at his controls, but it’s too late—they fire across the finish line, and the holoscreen above the pylons flashes a single name:

DIDINAROS

 

*

 

The crowd is absolutely uncontrollable for close to fifteen minutes after Erik’s win. Charles would’ve been lost in the chaos if the race officials hadn’t descended on Didinaros to ferry him straight to the winner’s podium. As part of Didinaros’ team, Charles is swept along as well, though he tries to keep a low profile as reporters and cameras swarm around Didinaros, demanding to know where he found his proxy pilot, who the boy is, what he’s going to do with his prize money. Thankfully Didinaros soaks up all the attention like a sponge, which allows Charles to trail along in the shadows, unnoticed.

He can’t help but come forward though when Erik comes into view. He’s standing by the winner’s podium looking distinctly uncomfortable, his hair disheveled from the helmet and sticky with sweat, his posture hunched and defensive. A human official is trying to herd him toward the stage where they can take his picture. Charles hurries forward and intercepts them. “Hello. Hi. Can I have a minute with him?”

The official tries to grab Erik’s arm. “No, we have to—”

Charles yanks Erik away, back toward the shaded alcove behind them. There, he can’t help but stop and throw his arms around Erik, hugging him tightly. “You idiot. You took so many terrible risks out there. I’m so mad at you, but I’m also so proud of you. You _won._ I can’t believe it. _”_

Erik grips him back, his pilot’s gloves digging into Charles’ shoulders. “I can’t believe it either,” he says, breathless. “My heart’s still pounding so hard—can you feel it?” He laughs, eyes gleaming with disbelief and exhilaration. “I just won the Gorian Classic. I watched that Mawhonic win that race when I was seven years old. I never thought I could…I just _won_ it.”

“You were brilliant,” Charles says, because Erik was. Charles has never seen piloting like that in all his life. 

Lifting his head, Erik preens.

“Come on,” Charles says after a moment, tugging on Erik’s arm. “We should disappear while everyone’s got their eyes on Didinaros. I told him we’d meet him back at the garage.”

Erik frowns. “You’d trust him to come back and give us our fair share?”  

“Well, we can’t wait around here. The longer we linger, the more likely some camera will pick up our faces. And besides, he has to come back to the garage.” Charles holds up a slim, flat disk. “I have his travel card. He can’t go anywhere off-planet without it.”

Erik grins sharply at him. “You brilliant, devious bastard. Okay, come on. Let’s get out of here.”

With some difficulty, they manage to slip out of the stadium unseen. Raucous fans have spilled out of the stadium into the streets outside, whooping and yelling, some of them ecstatically pumping fists, some of them sullenly surrendering lost bet money.

“You made a lot of people happy today,” Charles observes as one Toong clutches delightedly at an armful of credit chips.

“And I probably pissed a lot of people off, too,” Erik replies, keeping his head ducked as they push through the crowd. “And Master Emma. _Especially_ Master Emma.”

Charles is seriously not looking forward to that confrontation. He’s hoping their newfound fortune will help ease the friction, but…well. It’s Master Emma. She’s difficult to predict.

The walk back to Didinaros’ garage isn’t far, five blocks at most. They make it there without incident and slip inside undetected. Once they’re finally safely behind doors, Charles allows himself to relax, rolling his shoulders to try to ease the tension out of them. Erik goes to sit down on a crate, his shoulders slumping, head drooping. Adrenaline crash, Charles guesses. He fetches some water, brings it over, and helps Erik drink from it.

“I’m ready to sleep for a week,” Erik groans, hanging his head.

“I thought you could never get enough excitement,” Charles teases. Normally after one of Erik’s foolhardy plans, he’s already immediately hatching another scheme. But it looks like today’s events have actually tired him out. That’s something of a relief—as much as Charles loves tagging along on Erik’s hare-brained ideas, it’s never fun to face Emma’s cold disappointment and exasperation afterwards.

“Never enough,” Erik mumbles, eyes fluttering closed. “Just…not right now.”

Charles sits down next to him and places a gentle hand on his back. When he rubs between Erik’s shoulders and Erik makes a pleased noise, Charles keeps doing it, pressing his fingers into the knots of muscle around the top of Erik’s spine. “That’s good,” Erik groans, dropping his head further to allow Charles more access. “Right there.”

He’s just starting to really relax when the garage door suddenly rattles, and a voice just outside mutters disdainfully, “Locked.”

Instantly both of them are on their feet. That’s definitely not Didinaros. The door rattles again, and Charles creeps over to the peephole. He’s not tall enough to reach it though, so Erik has to come up behind him and peer through it. Whatever he sees makes him recoil, eyes wide.

“What is it?” Charles whispers, pale.

“Rodians. Three of them. They look like debt collectors.” 

“Shit.” Suddenly Didinaros’ eagerness to let Erik be his proxy pilot rather than waiting to pilot the Classic himself next year makes sense: he’s desperate for the prize money, so desperate that he’d allow a stranger whose skills he’d never seen before enter the race and attempt to win it. “They’re after the prize money, too, I bet.”

Erik’s eyes narrow. “He’d better not owe them more than his share because if he takes even a _credit_ from us, I’m going to fucking kill him.”

“He should’ve told us,” Charles whispers angrily. “I can’t believe he didn’t tell us.”

“I can. Frankly I would’ve been more surprised if he’d admitted it outright. No one likes to admit they got into bed with debt collectors.”

“True.” Charles bites his lip. “Well now what do we do? If he’s double-crossed us…”

Erik scowls. “I guess we’ll see.”

The Rodians seem content to set up camp outside, no doubt waiting for Didinaros to return. It’ll be hours yet, Charles guesses. Didinaros will be celebrated, paraded through town, presented with his prize money, and celebrated some more. Until then, he and Erik are as good as trapped in this cluttered garage.

“When he gets here,” Erik says, “we’ll demand our share and then get the hell out of here. It’s not our business whether or not he’s got debt collectors on his tail.”

“Yeah. Hopefully we’ll make it back to the hostel before Master Emma does.”

“Hopefully,” Erik agrees.

Charles scuffs the toe of his boot against the gritty floor. “What are we going to tell her about the money? Where it came from?”

“The truth.”

Charles sighs. “Yeah. She won’t believe anything else.”

“We’re already in deep shit,” Erik says. “Might as well embrace it.”

Charles snorts. “That’s one way of putting it.”

They sit in the garage in comfortable silence for a long, long while. Finally, after Charles has started to doze off on Erik’s shoulder, they hear a commotion outside. Didinaros’ shrill voice rises above the fray: “Of course I have your money. 200,000 credits—it’s all here, you can check it.”

“That fucker,” Erik growls.

They jump to their feet and hurry to the door. Erik gives him a look that says, _Are you ready?_ Charles takes a deep breath to steady himself and then nods. They can do this. They once faced down a spitting mad acklay with nothing but a wooden club between the two of them. They can handle a few debt collectors.

Erik yanks the garage door open, sending sunlight spilling in. Both the Rodians and Didinaros whip around to stare at them with varying degrees of confusion and impatience. All of the debt collectors, Charles notes with some trepidation, are armed.

“Who’s this?” one of the Rodians snaps.

“T-this?” Didinaros stutters. “No one. They’re nobodies.”

“You promised us sixty percent,” Erik says coldly. It amazes Charles sometimes how much Erik can sound like Emma, imperious and untouchable. “We’re here to collect.”

The Rodian makes an amused noise. “You promised this kid sixty percent of your cut? Are you a fool?”

“I-I—”

“Get out of here, kid,” the Rodian says, waving his long-fingered hand dismissively. “This bastard isn’t good for the money—he owes us first.”

Erik’s hands clench into fists. Charles can feel his anger hard and hot—a disturbance in the Force. “Well seeing as how _I’m_ the one who won the money in the first place, I think I should get first cut.”

That draws the Rodians up short. The one nearest to them peers closely at Erik’s face, then chitters in surprise. “It’s him. The pilot.”

“No,” says another disbelievingly. “A kid?”

“I’m fifteen,” Erik says mulishly. “Not a kid.”

The Rodian nearest to them steps closer. “Who are you, boy? What’s your name?”

Charles’ hackles go up. Master Emma has taught them from the beginning to be wary of such questions, to always seek an exit when someone becomes too interested in them. Erik remembers his training, too, because he falters, brash stubbornness giving way to caution. “No one,” he says. “Like Didinaros said, we’re nobodies.”

“Nobodies don’t just _walk_ in and win the Gorian Classic. The last time some nobody kid just showed up and won a Classic, he turned out to be…what do they call them?”

Black eyes narrowed, the Rodian next to him says, “Force-sensitive.”

“That’s right. Force-sensitive. It was the Boonta Eve Classic. Kid from Tatooine. You’re probably too young to remember it, but I do.” The Rodian steps closer, ears twitching. “They took that kid away to become a Jedi. Did you know that? And the Empire—they’ve been looking for kids to become Jedi. Got a bounty out on them and everything.”

Erik takes a huge step back and throws an arm across Charles’ chest. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think,” the Rodian says, advancing steadily, “what we’ve got here is worth more than 200,000 credits.”

 _Shit_ , Charles thinks. _Shit, shit, shit_. He fights to swallow down his panic and grasps for his training. _Serenity grants perspective. Perspective grants advantage. Advantage grants victory._ He chants that over and over in his head, struggling to calm the rapid thundering of his heart. He’s no good to anyone if he loses his composure. _Serenity_.

“How about you come nice and quiet?” the same Rodian continues, his hand slowly going for the blaster at his back. “We don’t want to damage the goods now, do we?”

Charles says, tremblingly, “We’re nobodies. No one. You want to turn around and leave and forget about us.”

The Rodians bark a laugh and advance further. Erik drags Charles back toward the garage, his fear and anger sending ripples through the Force. Charles ignores that, ignores the rattling of Erik’s emotion, and says again, more strongly this time, “We’re nobodies. No one. You want to turn around and leave and forget about us.”

“What are you going on about, kid? You’re—”

“We’re _nobodies_ ,” Charles says, with _Force_. “No one. You want to turn around and leave and _forget about us_.”

The Rodians freeze all at once, mid-step, mid-motion, mid-sentence. For a single, suspended moment, no one moves, no one even breathes. Charles stares at them, his pulse hammering in his temple, fear shot through to his fingertips. It hasn’t stuck. It didn’t stick, they’re going to take him and Erik and call the Empire, they’re going to turn them in and—

Then, simultaneously, the Rodians shake their heads, glancing at each other in confusion.

“What are we doing?” one of them asks.

“Leaving,” another says.

“Why are we here?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s go.”

“All right.”

Muttering to themselves, they step into the street and head off aimlessly, meandering toward the corner. Only once their dark-cloaked backs have disappeared does Charles finally let out the huge breath he’d been holding. He sags, light-headed, and Erik grabs him, steadies him.

“That was amazing,” Erik says, awed. “I told you you could do it!”

“I didn’t know…” Charles says faintly. And truly, he hadn’t known—Master Emma has been teaching him mind-craft for years now, and he’s managed to confuse and trick one person before, but never three. And never so forcefully.

“Are they coming back?” Didinaros asks. He’s watched the whole exchange with wide, incredulous eyes.  

“No,” Charles says, once he’s caught his breath.

Didinaros mutters something that sounds like a fervent prayer. “All right. Come on, get in the garage. I’ll split your share inside.”

“You double-crossed us,” Erik growls once they’re safely inside.

Didinaros’ gaze darts away. “I was…I had no choice! After the last Classic, my racer was destroyed. Unsalvageable. I couldn’t race with it, and I couldn’t make any money if I couldn’t race. But I needed money for a new racer.”

“So you borrowed it,” Charles says.

Didinaros bobs his head. “From Gorga the Hutt. Bad idea, I know. Hutts are terrible business partners.”

Charles’ brow wrinkles. “They’re gangsters.”  

“I know.” Didinaros exhales sharply. “I told them I would win the Gorian and pay them back. But I broke my arm. They were going to come for me if I didn’t have the money! They said they would cut off my antennae, one by one, and then carve up my face!”

“So you had us race for you. Then you were planning to use all the earnings to pay Gorga back.”

Didinaros hangs his head miserably. “I had no choice. You see that? You understand?”

“No,” Erik says coldly. “We ought to take all the creds and leave. You don’t deserve anything, especially after Charles got rid of those Rodians for good.”

“But what if they come back?” Didinaros shoots a desperate look at each of them. “Gorga won’t stop. He’ll send others. He’ll come for me until I’ve paid or I’m dead.” 

“And that’s our problem how?” Erik asks, utterly impassive.

“B-but…” Didinaros stares up at them, eyes huge. Then his expression crumples, and he begins to sob, big, ugly tears rolling down the wide expanse of his face.

Erik stares at him, clearly unsettled. Charles is frozen for a long few seconds before he makes himself move, grabbing Erik’s elbow and pulling him aside. Taking a deep breath, he says lowly, “I think we should give him the creds.”

Erik’s eyes fly open. “ _What?_ No! I won the fucking race fair and square! We had an arrangement, he broke it, it’s only right that we get compensated for it!”

“But, Erik, _look_ at him.” They both look and then glance quickly away, embarrassed by the mess Didinaros is making of himself. “He’s terrified,” Charles says softly. “And he’s right—if he owes money to a Hutt, he’s never getting off the hook until his debt is paid.”

“And that matters to us how?” Erik demands.

‘“A Jedi knows compassion,”’ Charles quotes. 

“Yeah, but we’re _not_ Jedi.”

“But Master Emma is,” Charles says. “And this is what she would do.”

They both know it’s true. For all that she’s cold and emotionless on the exterior, Master Emma has a gentler side to her, invisible to all but those who know her best. Without it, she would never have made a good Jedi. Without it, she would never have taken in two lost Force-sensitive boys looking for a place to belong.

Erik’s shoulders slump, the fire going out of him. Around him, the Force stills, restless waters turned tranquil once more. “All right.”

Charles takes his hand and squeezes it. “All right.”

Turning to Didinaros, he says, “Here’s the deal: we let you keep all the winnings, and you forget you ever saw us. Fair?”

Didinaros stares up at them in shock and bewilderment. “What?”

“We’re being good guys,” Erik says irritably. “You keep the money, and you keep your mouth shut. Get it?”

“Y-yes.” Didinaros shakes his head disbelievingly. “You—you would let me keep the money? All of it?”

Charles nods. “Yes. But if anyone ever asks about us, you never met us, you never spoke with us, and you never saw us. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Didinaros falls to his knees before them and bows his head. “Yes, _yes_. Thank you, _thank you_.”

When he tries to kiss Erik’s boot, Erik moves back, brows drawn. “Just don’t make any more deals with any Hutts, okay?”

“I promise, I _promise_.”

“Good.”

Charles takes Erik’s hand again. “We should go. It’s almost evening.” He can’t shake the frightening feeling that Master Emma might have come back early. And now they don’t even have anything to show for their disobedience—it’s the absolute, worst-case scenario.

“Yeah,” Erik says, “let’s get out of here.”

Leaving Didinaros to his prize, they duck out of the garage door, step out onto the street, and—

“Going somewhere?”

Charles’s heart turns to ice in his chest. He can feel Erik’s hand shaking in his own. Slowly, both of them turn on their heels to find Master Emma leaning casually on the side of the garage, just beside the door. In her nondescript clothes and her gray hood drawn over her face, she hardly stands out on the Malastarean streets; any passerby would dismiss her with a quick glance. But there’s immense power hidden in that slight frame, immense experience—and, most terrifyingly, an immense capacity for condemnation.

She’s here. She knows they left the hostel against her orders. Chances are, she’s already seen holo-footage of the race. They are so, _so_ fucked.

“Follow me,” she says icily, and they fall in line silently, clutching hands.

It’s a short walk to a yellow speeder parked at the end of the road, and from there, it’s an enormously uncomfortable fifteen-minute ride back to the hostel. None of them say a word as they climb the winding stairs up to their room. Emma opens the door, waits for them both to enter, and then allows the door to slide shut with a pneumatic hiss that makes them flinch.

“So,” she says into the ringing silence, “who would like to explain to me what, exactly, happened?”

Charles had thought that facing off against the three Rodians had been terrifying. He’d been so wrong. Swallowing hard, he steps forward. “It was my idea.”

Erik shoots him a wide-eyed look. “He’s lying! It was my idea!”

“I thought of it,” Charles says bravely. “I just convinced Erik to go along with it.”

“ _That’s—_ ”

“Enough,” Emma says sharply. Her piercing gaze sweeps down to Charles. “I think we both know that this is exactly the kind of stupid idea Erik would come up with, so don’t even try to cover for him.”

Charles blushes sheepishly. 

“More importantly,” she continues, “I don’t care whose idea it was. I want to know why, for god’s sake, either of you thought it was a good idea to enter into an _interplanetary_ podracing classic where there would be _billions_ of witnesses all staring straight at your faces, all watching you pull off an impossible win? Those holovids will be broadcast for _weeks,_ if not _years_.”

“I had a helmet,” Erik says weakly. “And goggles.”

“Do you think that matters? It won’t take much to infer the rest of your face from the half they have, and if the Empire discovers who you are, if they realize _what_ you are, they’ll come after you.” Emma’s voice lowers, each word cutting like a knife. “They’ll come after you and me and Charles. Don’t you understand? Haven’t I taught you _anything?”_  

“Yes,” Charles whispers.

“Then _why?”_ Her eyes latch onto his, then fly to Erik’s. “Why would you do this? Why would you risk destroying everything I’ve done to keep you safe?”

“Because…”

“ _Because?”_

“Because it’s your birthday!” Charles blurts out miserably, his face hot. “It’s your birthday and we wanted to do something extra special for you, to thank you for everything you’ve ever done for us. You always seem worried about money these days, and we thought that if we could win the Classic, you could take the earnings and that would be enough for us to live on. Then you wouldn’t have to worry anymore.” Charles presses his mouth into an unhappy line. “We just wanted to help.”

He trains his gaze on the floor, too ashamed to look up at Master Emma and see the disapproval on her face. She’s right—they took an unconscionable risk today, all for nothing. It was reckless to begin with, and they had both known it. They’d just been too drunk on the possibility of adventure and glory to fully consider the consequences, and now it might be too late. How stupid of them. How _stupid_.

He realizes, after a long minute, that Master Emma hasn’t said anything. When he looks up, she’s staring down at him with the oddest expression on her face—it’s disbelieving and confused and almost _soft_.

“It’s not my birthday,” she says quietly.

Charles fights the urge to fidget. “It is tomorrow.”  

She frowns, but there’s no ice in it. “You remember.”

“Of course I remember. Erik too.”

“Erik too.” She glances at Erik, who’s carefully studying his boots. She's quiet for another interminable moment. Then, with a deep sigh, she says, “Come here,” and opens her arms.

Relief floods through Charles like a herd of stampeding banthas. Tears pricking the corners of his eyes, he rushes into her arms and clutches tight at her, so relieved he wants to sob with it. Erik’s clutching at Emma just as tight on her other side, his shoulder pressed to Charles’. They’re both shaking a little, but it’s a good shaking. It’s pure gladness.

“We’re so sorry,” Charles whispers. “We’re really sorry.”

Beside him, Erik nods wordlessly. Master Emma sighs and says with a touch of amusement, “All of that, and you didn’t bring back a single credit.”

Charles goes still. “The pilot—we borrowed a podracer from this Toong pilot, Ned Didinaros, and he—”

“I know,” Master Emma says. “I overheard enough.” After a long moment, she strokes a hand down his arm and adds quietly, “I’m proud of you, for that.”

Charles’ chest grows warm and tight. He buries his face into Emma’s shoulder and breathes in shakily and deep.

After a long few minutes, Master Emma says gruffly, “All right, all right. That’s enough sniffling. Now get off me so I can go assess what sort of damage you’ve done over the last day and a half.”

Wiping his eyes on his sleeve, Charles pulls back. “We’re sorry.”

“I know,” Emma says, “and you’re forgiven. But you ever do anything like this again, and I swear on my honor I’m marooning you on Hoth.”

“Hoth?” Erik echoes blankly.

“Trust me,” Emma says dryly, “that’s the last place you would ever want to be marooned. Now stay here—I _mean_ it this time.”

As she gets up and heads for the door, Charles calls out, “Master?”

She pauses. “Yes?”

“This isn’t the _worst_ birthday you’ve ever had, is it?”

The corner of her lip twitches in exasperation. “No,” she says, casting them both a quick, fond look, “not the worst.” 

 


End file.
